Wildlife feature in Africa - 3K, and other questions

[Steve Gibby]

Mike,

With RED being S35, when you use the 150-600, which as you know is designed to cover FF35, you're shooting a crop out of the center of the lens. With the 2x on the 150-600 the minimum aperture is f11 so you need a ton of light - usually much more than you get in "magic hour" shooting. I've never thought the 150-600 is good wide open. I prefer it between f8 and f11 - as you know its the sweet spot of the lens.

The solid state drives (RED RAM) are quite good - but at $4,500 USD per drive they are costly. If you'll be getting excessive bounce while shooting you may want to go for the RED RAM drives. Maybe a combo of some RED RAM drives and some regular RED Drives with ET Shock Mounts would be the best idea.

For backup in the field we've been using duplicate 1 TB hard drives. My Book Studio Edition, with dual FireWire 800 buses have been very dependable for us - plus they're pretty small, thus easier to cart around. We put them in zippered protective cases from Western Digital for traveling. We're also looking for a small mobile LTO datatape solution, so we can back up to one drive, and then one LTO tape in the field. It sounds like you won't have a lot of backing up to do, so no, I don't think you need a separate data wrangler. With a MacBook Pro to check the RED Quicktime dailies, and Firewire 800 buses on the MacBook and the portable drives, the backing up goes real fast after the days shooting - with the amount of daily footage you said you'll have.

I got your PM. A short while ago I sent you of an email reply.

Cheers!

[mike holding]

Hi Steve

Thanks again - more good info! I think I will equip each kit with 1 x Red Ram per camera, and 2 x Red Drives, plus CF Cards to cover all eventualities.

Daily downloads sound simple enough. I have a bunch of G-Tech drives of various sizes already, which I have found to be very robust, so will probably use those. I had intended to have an LTO system in the main base, for backing up footage on a weekly basis. I'd be interested to know what system you decide to go with.

Is there any answer to my earlier question about the Quicktime proxies being a problem when you shoot at 3K? (I read this on these boards somewhere)

[Lauri Kettunen]

I will try to borrow one and do some tests - I really do need a zoom / variable focal length ability, because often I'm stuck in one shooting position, surrounded by elephants or whatever, and need to reframe for full sequence coverage!

Sounds familiar. I've found the EF 28-300mm/f3.5-5.6 L IS USM together with a 1.4 extender a rather useful combo especially in a hide. The range from 28mm is 420mm is pretty large.

[mike holding]

Thanks Lauri - yes that sounds like a good option, and I guess also not that heavy. Again I will try to get my hands on one to run some lens tests.

[Steve Gibby]

Happy to help...

QT proxies of RED 3k footage play fine for me in the QT player - same as 4k and 2k files.

We usually edit in FCP6. For TV and small screen projects with the 3k files, if we're using RED Alert for color correction and output render, in the render menu we select a Debayer Quality of Half High (selecting Full will take a while to render, and the Half High looks good), select an output format of QuickTime MOV, select ProRes 422 HQ as the QT codec, on the far right check the Scale box, type in 1920x1080, and select Gauss (smooth) from the Resample Filter menu - or other "sharp" or "smooth" resample types you want. Give the file a name and destination and hit render. The 3k file will then scale down and render easily to 1920x1080 ProRes 422 HQ - ready for ingest into FCP and editing.

Since you're going to DI and theatrical output your file processing and output will be more involved, but if you comb the Workflow forum here on RU, you should be able to easily figure out the current workarounds for using 3k files. Hopefully sometime soon with the next upgrades to post applications, many of them will natively recognize 3k files.

If you use FC Studio2, and use the Color application for correction, it won't natively recognize 3k files, but will half scale them down to 1.5k on ingest. For quick or smaller projects that's why we've been using the RED Alert procedure above to quickly one-light 3k files and scale them down to 1920x1080.

All my over-cranked footage for nature and sports is shot in 3k unless I absolutely need a higher frame rate than 3k will afford me, then I may use 2k. Once Epic ships, reportedly (yes, subject to change) much higher frame rates in all resolutions (including 3k) should be a reality. Also the burst frame rates with Scarlet may do real well for short takes of over-cranked action - we'll see. If they're in the final specs for the cameras, those over-cranking capabilities will be way cool for genres who regularly rely on over-cranking footage to get slo-mos and super slo-mos.

[Lauri Kettunen]

guess also not that heavy.

Mike,

Yes, the 28-300m is not heavy. Indeed, weight is a significant factor in wildlife shooting and the bigger the lens the more sturdy tripod and fluid head is needed. Thinking about long lenses, a practical problem is focusing. When you focus by hand say a 600mm or 800mm lens, the images appears as if there's an earthquake going on.

The nice thing about the Birger EF mount is that it can be controlled wirelessly. So far I've used my laptop for this, but the wireless Viewfactor knob should, according to Birger, be sent today. This makes all the difference as then one can focus and set the iris without touching the camera at all, and this is an advantage with long lenses. Second, the knob maps the focus ring to turn a full circle giving also quite a lot more precise control on the focus than turning the focus ring of the lens. All this implies with the EF mount one can manage with a lighter tripod and fluid head compared to if you used cinema lenses and PL mount.

[mike holding]

Steve

Thanks regarding 3K proxies. This was a concern as we will be viewing dailies on FCP/Macbook Pro in the field, and the proxies need to be if sufficient quality to spot camera/lens problems etc. From what you describe it looks fairly straightforward, even for the IT challenged (like me!)

The full post production workflow is being handled by a top post-house in London who have quite a bit of experience with RED footage already, I think working with Baselight or a Quantel system (but I might be wrong!) so they have worked out the full workflow/grading/DI process. I just need a methodology so we can view and rough-cut sequences in the field ( to assess basic quality and see what is missing from sequences as we build them) and to keep us all on the same page with regard to framing, style etc.

Do you have any examples of footage shot 3K slomo that I could download and look at? Bear in mind that our internet is VERY slow here in the wilds (I think snails are faster!) so big files are a bit of a problem! About 500 MB is do-able. (overnight)

Thanks again

[mike holding]

Hi Lauri
I am most comfortable using the biggest, heaviest lenses and fluid head I can use for stability - I'm quite familiar with the earthquake factor! It makes a huge difference to have a solid heavy rig. However, its nice to have a "portable" option for when you need to move the camera around quickly, or rig it in a tree, or carry it any distance. Thats where the Nikon would definitely be an option I think.

[Steve Gibby]

Mike,

Yes, the QT proxies from RED 3k files will play fine on your MacBook Pro laptop. That's what I use in the field to check dailies. There are four sizes of QT proxy generated: full, high, medium, small. I generally use the high ones. You can select "Fit to screen" from the View menu on the MB and watch full screen.

With RED One, if I know I'm going to be needing overcranked wildlife or sports footage, I set up the camera with : 3k, 16:9, Redcode 36 quality, a project frame rate of 23.98 (24 for you if going to filmout), and use the Varispeed menu to set 48 frames per second, and then set a shutter speed of around 1/120th second. That will give you a smooth 50% slo-mo on playback.

With this setup, when you view your QT proxie dailies, the player will recognize the 24 (or 23.98) frame project rate, but also then recognize your overcrank to 48 fps, and play back the clip in the 50% slow motion which you shot. You can also use the free Redcine software from RED to watch the dailies in slow motion as you shot them. For me, I usually just quickly review dailies using the QT proxies directly from the RED Drive via FireWire 800 to the MM Pro, and toss the shots that didn't work before I backup and offload the footage to other drives. I use this same setup profile when I need good slo-mos from sports, wildlife, aerials, etc.

When Epic and Scarlet (burst) ship, hopefully we will be able to do some amazing overcranked footage of fast motion subjects. We'll see...

You can rough cut sequences on your MB Pro in FCP6 using the RED QT proxies generated by the camera. The Workflow forum has a lot on that procedure.

Hmmm...small file examples of some of my RED 3k slow motion footage you can view online? I do have one example online you can check out. The entire piece was shot on RED. If you click on the "Southern Utah Ranch" link in my signature below, you'll find a short promotional piece I did for the southern Utah buffalo ranch I regularly stay at. There are three sizes of QT video on that page you can view: H.264, medium, small. The H.264 is about 51 MB, and the others are much smaller. Most of the promo was shot in 4k HD, 29.97, 1/96th sec shutter, but there are a few overcranked shots in it I shot using the exact 3k setup I outlined earlier in this post. Those 3k slow motion shots are the shot of two cowboys galloping their horses across a meadow, a shot of cowboys galloping along side a running herd of buffalo, and just after that a shot of a single cowboy sitting on his horse as the buffalo mill about.

50% slo-mos of fast action subjects, shot in 3k with RED using the other setup parameters I outlined above, are glass smooth on playback. The QT proxies play the slow motion, as will Redcine, and FCP.

Hope this helps...

[Tom Lowe]

Sounds like an amazing project, Mike.

Assuming that Scarlet 2/3" (interchangeable lens version) comes out this year or early next (?), you might consider that camera as well, as it will be extremely portable, and can shoot 3K RAW at up to 120fps, with 150fps burst! Put some big Canon or Nikon glass on that camera, and the magnification factor would be significant. The newer Red models should be better on bootup time, battery life, heat and low-light performance, etc.